


Poor Taste

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 23:17:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10684932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: “You’re my brother; you’re supposed to say stuff like that.”





	Poor Taste

**Author's Note:**

> thx fafa for the prompt (niji taking care of his siblings)--it's mostly niji + sis but i hope u like!

Shuuzou’s got the last period of the day free, a blessing that allows him to leave early and swing by the middle school early enough to pick up his siblings. They could theoretically take the bus home, but that’s extra money especially with two of them, and it’s not far enough out of Shuuzou’s way to make much of a dent in the gas bill. It’s also got the benefit of letting Shuuzou see what they’re up to a bit, how they’re doing outside of what little they tell him (which on some level he gets, even though they’re really, thankfully, not much like he was at that age).

There’s an accident on the freeway and it’s clogged up the streets halfway between Shuuzou’s school and his siblings’; he manages to make it there just as the first few students start trickling out, carrying posterboards and projects and comically oversized backpacks. Shuuzou pulls over, double-parking next to a half-rusted station wagon. Most of the parents use the parking lot or pay the bus fees; Shuuzou’s lucky in that regard (last year when his brother had been in elementary school, he’d had to drive around the block a few times trying to get a glimpse of him more often than not). He rolls down the window; there are a few of his sister’s friends but she’s not with them. Shuuzou switches off the ignition. He’ll wait.

He’s checking the news on his phone when his brother wraps on the window; Shuuzou flips the passenger-side lock.

“Backpack only,” he says, and his brother huffs but acquiesces, shoving the door shut after depositing his bag and opening the back door to slide in.

“How was school?” says Shuuzou.

“Okay,” says his brother, scuffing the floor mat with his shoe. “I have a science test next week.”

“Have you been taking notes?” says Shuuzou. “I know you’ve been doing your homework.”

“Yes,” says his brother, a tinge of irritation in his voice.

“Good, keep it up,” says Shuuzou.

He catches his sister approaching out of the corner of his eye; it’s the highlighter-yellow beanie that does it (she claims it’s all the rage, and looking at the other kids she might be right—that doesn’t mean it’s not tacky as hell or that the weather isn’t a little too hot for that). She dumps her bag on the front seat without even asking about seating (a small victory, perhaps) and then slides into the backseat, strapping on her seatbelt and crossing her arms.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

Shuuzou raises an eyebrow at her. “Nothing?”

“Nope,” she says and scowls, pulling the beanie down over the top of her ears.

Shit—it could be anything, garden-variety bad day or some stupid assholes bullying her or actual trouble. She’s better than he’d been at her age about impulse control and not mouthing off, but that’s really not saying much and if someone had pushed her far enough, she could have said something. He tells himself to breathe; as far as he knows they haven’t called home (his mom would have said something, right?) and she doesn’t look physically hurt. Unless she’s pulling the hat down to hide something?

“Can we just go?” she says.

Shuuzou would like to stay here and get it out of her—but he’s double-parked and his brother’s scuffing his shoe against the floor mat again and they need to get groceries so they can all get home and do their homework. He turns the key in the ignition and the car sputters to life.

Once they’re at the store, Shuuzou’s brother grabs the grocery list and pushes the cart off into the dairy section; Shuuzou lets him go. He wants to pick out the produce himself, and maybe his sister will be up for talking if it’s just the two of them. She’s looking at him, slightly wary, but follows him to the peppers and tears him off a plastic bag. She knows she can talk to him about this; he doesn’t have to restate it—still. Shuuzou clears his throat.

“Do you think my forehead’s too big?” she blurts out before he can say anything.

Shuuzou blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“My forehead,” she says. “I know, you’re used to it or whatever, but—”

“No, seriously,” Shuuzou says. “Your forehead’s fine.”

He’d say it even if it wasn’t, but her forehead’s perfectly normal—definitely not the kind of thing he’s used to hearing about from her. Maybe it looks bigger to her because she’s wearing the beanie? Or maybe she’s pulling it down because some idiot kid said something to her and she’s trying to hide it.

“Did someone say something?”

She frowns harder, suddenly very interested in the root vegetables.

“If they did, they’re wrong and have—poor taste.”

“You’re my brother; you’re supposed to say stuff like that,” she says.

He drops his arm around her shoulders. “What, tell you not to worry about things that aren’t problems?”

She looks up at him, but doesn’t say anything, just stuffs her hands into her pants pockets before looking back at the ginger and engaging it in a staring contest.

The rest of the trip is uneventful, Shuuzou’s brother whining at him about buying a pack of gum and his sister spending the ride back staring out the window while Shuuzou flips the station from sports talk to bubblegum pop to merengue and back, his brother nodding to the beat and trying to look lowkey cool in the back (on him it comes off as adorable, but Shuuzou’s not going to tell him that).

His sister follows him into the kitchen to get dinner ready, her English book tucked under her arm as if she’s going to pretend to read it. He shoves a cutting board at her and she helps; she’s not all that fast but the time passes quicker and if he’s paying attention to make sure she’s holding the knife properly then he won’t space out with his fingers pressing into an onion again.

“It was Linda,” she says.

Who the hell is this little punk? Shuuzou doesn’t even know her, can’t recall a Linda in the handful of kids his sister’s introduced to him since he’s moved here. Is she even a friend, or just some random mean kid?  
“She’s wrong,” Shuuzou says. “You know she’s wrong, right?”

“Well,” says his sister. “She invited Emily and Ana to her sleepover and they got all dressed up in fancy clothes and took pictures, and she didn’t ask me because she said I’d look horrible without a beanie because I have a fivehead and she didn’t want me messing up the fancy look.”

She’s still cutting the carrot calmly, as if this is a usual thing. Is it? Has this been going on a long time? What the hell are Emily and Ana doing with a kid like this Linda, anyway? (From what Shuuzou knows, they’re nice, normal kids.)

“Hey,” says Shuuzou, putting his own knife down.

His sister has to hear how his voice is about to crack; she looks up at him and pauses in her cutting.

“I don’t know Linda, but it sounds to me like she’s not a very nice person and she wanted you to feel excluded. She’s going to make up some bull—some reason, why she didn’t, because she wants you to still want to hang out with her.”

“But I do want to hang out with her,” his sister says. “Linda’s cool; her parents own a restaurant and they let her have blue hair and really nice outfits.”

“But do you like talking with her?”

“I would if I could.”

Shuuzou walks over to his sister, and this time he gives her a real hug. She makes a startled, half-embarrassed noise (and, well, as a sibling it’s his job to do that even when no one’s around).

“I’m not going to tell you to ignore her, because that’s not helpful,” says Shuuzou. “But you don’t need people like her in your life. You’re pretty cool on your own, you know. You’re good at basketball; you’ve got a great sense of humor; you always win at Mario Kart.”

His sister makes a noise that sounds like a start of not reconciling that with whatever Linda’s deemed cool at the moment, but lets him keep going.

“And you’re a great sister, and we’re lucky to have you. I’d rather have you than a restaurant or whatever. I know you want to hang out with her, but there are other kids you want to hang out with, too, right? Even if Ana and Emily are hanging out with her right now, what about your other friends? And if talking with them, or chilling or playing games or whatever, is fun, then you don’t need to worry about Linda or anyone else. Okay?”

She sighs. “Okay.”

“Also, you’d look great in a formal outfit. Why do you think I keep telling you the beanie’s tacky?”

That gets a half-laugh out of her, at least. By the time their mom gets home from the hospital, dinner’s ready and homework’s mostly done. They all open up a little more about their days at school (Shuuzou’s brother talks more about his science test; Shuuzou talks about calculus until both of his siblings roll their eyes; Shuuzou’s sister talks about her recess basketball game—apparently there had been some good things about the day for her). Shuuzou’s sister glances over at him, but he doesn’t tell their mother anything. He’s willing to bet things will get better, and she doesn’t need something else to give her grief at the moment.

His sister stops by his room on her way to bed, hair still wet from the shower and pushed away from her bare forehead.

“Thanks for earlier, Shuu-nii.”

“Anytime,” he says.

She smiles before she goes, closing the door behind her.


End file.
